ashed about hurrying the movements of the
troops, and asking the whereabouts of the enemy. This information they
soon obtained. No sooner was the alarm given, than Zumalacarregui,
relying upon the tried courage of his soldiers, and on the advantage
of his position, which must render the enemy's cavalry useless, and
greatly diminish the effect of the artillery, put himself at the head
of his two battalions, and rapidly descended the mountain, dispatching
an officer after Gomez with orders for a similar movement on his part.
Before the Carlists reached the plain, the Christinos quartered in the
nearest village advanced to meet them, and a smart skirmish began.

Distributed along the clifts and terraces of the mountain, kneeling
amongst the bushes and sheltered behind the trees that grew at its
base, the Carlists kept up a steady fire, which was warmly replied to
by their antagonists. In the most exposed situations, the Carlist
officers of all ranks, from the ensign to the general, showed
themselves, encouraging their men, urging them to take good aim, and
not to fire till they could distinguish the faces of their enemies,
themselves sometimes taking up a dead man's musket and sending a few
well-directed shots amongst the Christinos. Here a man was seen
binding the sash, which forms part of the dress of every Navarrese
peasant, over a wound that was not of sufficient importance to send
him to the rear; in another place a guerilla replenished his scanty
stock of ammunition from the cartridge-belt of a fallen comrade, and
sprang forward, to meet perhaps, the next moment, a similar fate. On
the side of the Christinos there was less appearance of enthusiasm and
ardour for the fight; but their numbers were far superior, and each
moment increased, and some light guns and howitzers that had been
brought up began to scatter shot and shell amongst the Carlists,
although the manner in which the latter were sheltered amongst wood
and rock, prevented those missiles from doing them very material
injury. The fight was hottest around the hill on which the picket had
been stationed, now the most advanced point of the Carlist line. It
was held by a battalion, which, dispersed amongst the trees that
fringed its sides, opposed a fierce resistance to the assaults of the
Christinos. At last the latter, weary of the protracted skirmishing,
by which they lost many men, but were unable to obtain any material
advantage, sent forward two battalions